Saturday, February 13, 2010

Let me preface this commentary by explaining that I do not watch either Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck.

I don't have to.

WND visitors send me so many video clippings from these shows, pointing out the good, the bad and the ugly, there's no need for me to devote two hours a day tuned to the tube.

Lately, it seems, O'Reilly and Beck have been teaming up – doing each other's shows. Such was the case recently when Beck visited the set of "The O'Reilly Factor," where they exchanged ignorances on what we call "the eligibility issue."

One thing this pair has in common is their steadfast belief that Barack Obama has somehow proven he is constitutionally eligible to serve in the White House – or so they suggest. They routinely engage in ad hominem attacks on "loons" and "conspiracy nuts" who believe otherwise.

To say Beck and O'Reilly are obsessed with ridiculing Americans who believe the Constitution has been dishonored by Barack Obama's steadfast refusal to release any meaningful documentation of his eligibility, his education, his travels, his health and his life story in general would be an understatement.

They are on a mission – one that apparently requires them to be less than honest about their own beliefs on the matter. Either that or they are both terribly confused about what they believe.

And there was O'Reilly, again, last Friday, weaving one of the most fantastic conspiracy tales ever conceived – that Obama actually wants Americans obsessing about his birth certificate. In fact, he suggested, Obama created this issue intentionally.

"I think the reason they didn't ever produce the birth certificate is because they wanted these loons out there," he told Beck.

Did you catch that? O'Reilly has been telling the world for months and months that Obama has released his birth certificate. But here is O'Reilly contradicting these assertions by admitting Obama has done nothing of the kind – a fact an increasing number of Americans already know.

In other words, O'Reilly slipped.

And Beck was right there to catch him – prop him up again, get him back on the script.

"Hang on," Beck reminded O'Reilly. "I think he has produced the birth certificate, the one that Hawaii ..."

"We have a facsimile," O'Reilly asserted. "But I want him to send (the original) directly to me."

The story keeps changing. I've seen O'Reilly say time and again that he doesn't care about the original birth certificate – that he could see it any time he wanted. Now, suddenly, he wants it sent to him. Why? I thought he wasn't curious about it. I thought he was satisfied with Obama's cover story. I thought he believed those wanting to see it were nuts.